Gilberte Côté-Mercier, a great collaborator of Louis Even
On the 50th anniversary of his death (September 27, 1974) at the age of 89, MICHAEL highlighted different aspects of the life of Louis Even, founder of our movement.
But we must also acknowledge the contribution of another person, the co-founder and first collaborator of Louis Even, Gilberte Côté-Mercier. Without her our work and the apostolate itself, would not have been possible.
Here are some excerpts from an article written by Thérèse Tardif and published in the August-September 2002 issue of MICHAEL, following the death of Gilberte Côté-Mercier on June 21, 2002, at the age of 92. She was a heroic figure, and because of her great love of God and neighbour, she devoted her life to justice and love of the poorest.
by Thérèse Tardif
The sacrifice of the first child
Gilberte's parents, Rosario Côté and Joséphine Gariépy, were married on June 26, 1907, at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Montreal. God gave them their first son, whom they named and baptized Jean-Baptiste. At birth, the child was in good health, but after a while, he began to lose weight and grow weaker. The doctor had no explanation.
Madame Côté, a great devotee of Saint Joseph, went to St. Joseph's Oratory with her son to consult the good Brother André (canonized by Benedict XVI in 2010), a miracle-worker who miraculously cured the sick. But Brother André's intercession didn't heal Jean-Baptiste; instead, he asked Mrs. Côté to offer her first born son to God. It was quite a sacrifice for the young mother, but she accepted. The following week, the little angel was taken to heaven.
Was it a sacrifice God asked of the mother to grant the daughter a very special mission? Perhaps, as nothing is a coincidence in God's divine plan. The name Jean-Baptiste is striking too, given that Madame Côté-Mercier's funeral took place on June 24, the feast of St. John the Baptist.
Her childhood
Marie Joséphine Gilberte was born on May 25, 1910, the anniversary of St. Padre Pio's birth, and ascended to heaven (our hope) in the octave of the Padre's canonization, on June 16, 2002. She had Padre Pio's ruthlessness when it came to scourging evil and condemning injustice, and immodesty in particular.
In 1910, at the time of Gilberte Côté's baptism, Louis Even was a school teacher in Montreal's Immaculate Conception parish, the same parish where little Gilberte was baptized.
Gilberte had a second brother, Rosaire. He was a great contributor to the work of Vers Demain (the French-language version of MICHAEL) throughout his life. Rosaire left this earth in 1963, at the age of 51. He had one son, Michel, born in 1939, the year Vers Demain was founded. (The English-language version, MICHAEL, began in 1953.) Aunt Gilberte was Michel's godmother, and he had great veneration for her. He was, and continues to be, a great supporter of Vers Demain.
From the age of four, Gilberte received piano lessons from a family friend. The child had a great talent for music. She was gifted by the spirit of sacrifice, and by the age of six was putting little pebbles in her shoes in the spirit of suffering, to help Our Lord save souls.
With a bachelor's degree in Art, Philosophy and Literature, she spent six years taking courses in Social and Political Sciences at the University of Montreal. In those days, that was an ambitious undertaking for a young girl. Before 1908, women did not attend university.
In Rhetoric, Gilberte Côté earned a medal awarded by France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She also held a degree in Music from Dr. Robert Schmitz's Chicago School of Music. She would have made a career of it, if she hadn't feared getting lost among the world's stars.
Her father had given her a top-quality grand piano; an excellent instrument signed by a great artist. It was a treasure for her. But she sacrificed it and left it silent for many years so that she could devote all her time to the work of Vers Demain. Only at Christmas and New Year's Day did she give us the pleasure of playing a few pieces at the Maison Saint-Michel in Rougemont. Even at Christmas 2001, she still gave us this little pleasure.
Oratorical debate
Gilberte Côté and her fellow student, Eliane Lefebvre, were invited to compete with the boys in a debate at the University of Montreal. Gérard Fillion, who later became director of the newspaper "Le Devoir", was one of the debaters.
The young ladies had prepared well, seeking legal advice, and came out on top much to the displeasure of the boys, who at the time considered it a serious humiliation to be outdone by girls. It had been only a few years earlier that girls had been accepted at the university.
Mr. Rosario Côté was present at this debate. He was proud of his daughter, but didn't compliment her so as not to inspire feelings of pride. He simply said, "It took a lot of hard work to achieve this success." Gilberte appreciated her father's thoughtful training.
When she was 20, her father offered her a trip to Europe. She refused, and asked him to give her the gift of the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas instead. Does this not illustrate her level of character?
A phrase from the angelic doctor guided her life: "The perfection of wisdom is not in the line of intelligence, but in the line of love." Aquinas reflected: "I am going to hell with my intellectual baggage if I don't use it to serve others."
The economic crisis
Mr. Rosario Côté was a shoe manufacturer. It was 1930, the start of the Depression. He said to his wife: "I barely make a penny for a pair of shoes. I'd have to fire some of my employees, but I can't do that. They need to provide for their families with daily bread, as I do."
Like all businessmen, Mr. Côté was approached by bankers. He used to say to his wife: "I don't understand what the bankers want from us, there's something fishy about it." Gilberte Côté would later say: "If my father had lived, he would have understood [Douglas] Social Credit and he would have helped us; he already suspected that there was something fishy in the banking system."
Death of a beloved father
Suddenly, she was in mourning. Her good father, on whom she could rely, died suddenly on November 25, 1932. She was 22 years old. Two years later, Mr. Côté's brother, a partner in the shoe factory, had borrowed money from the bank and had to declare bankruptcy.
Fortunately, Mrs. Côté's share was preserved. She used her assets to buy rental houses. Miss Gilberte would collect the rent each month during the height of the economic crisis. She had to return three or four times to collect a small $5 from her tenants. She would emerge from the experience with her heart crushed, thinking she had taken the bread out of their mouths. "The $5 rent burned my hands," she'd confess. But had she not done so, she would have lost her homes, and the poor would have had no roofs over their heads. What an awful dilemma!
She met Father Dugré, a Jesuit, who was trying to help the many unemployed. He sent them to Abitibi to work. With the salvation of the poor at heart, Gilberte Côté offered to help Father Dugré. Her mission in this work was to raise funds to send settlers' wives to join their husbands in Abitibi. But afterwards, these ladies wrote to her: "Our situation is worse in Abitibi than in Montreal. In Montreal, we were in misery, but here, we are starving."
Miss Côté showed these letters to Father Dugré and ceased her activities in this work. But how could she help the growing number of poor people? There were no old age pensions, no family allowances, no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and so on. For those who didn't own farms, the situation was one of grinding poverty.
The light at last
The light finally dawned on her when, one evening, she attended a meeting of Montreal landlords where everyone was lamenting that they couldn't get their rents paid. A lady by the name of Louart was making some very interesting remarks in the midst of the others. Gilberte Côté sat down next to her. Mrs. Louart invited her to her home that evening and explained to her [Douglas] Social Credit, developed by Scottish engineer Clifford Hugh Douglas.
Gilberte Côté came running home after the meeting, so enthusiastic was she. At last, she had discovered the solution to the problem of poverty. She understood that it was an artificial problem. The system of production provided food in abundance in Canada, as in all other countries. Stores and warehouses were overflowing with products and goods, even in the harshest years of the Depression. She learned that all the woes and suffering were due to a backward system of distribution. It was the bankers' money-debt system that was at fault.
Miss Côté read a little more in the English book: "Money, what is it?" In December 1936, she was invited to give a lecture at the "Inter-Nos" circle. Her subject was, of course, [Douglas] Social Credit. Her lecture was highly appreciated and well understood. The newspapers reported positively about the event.
Friends of Louis Even, having read the report in the papers, clearly saw that it was about Douglas' principles of economic reform. They invited Gilberte Côté to a Louis Even meeting at the Salle de la Nativité in Hochelaga, Montreal, in February 1937. She attended, accompanied by her mother, Madame Rosario Côté, and her brother, Rosaire.
They were delighted to hear Louis Even, an excellent teacher, clearly explain the solution to the economic crisis that had been raging around the world for eight long years and was the cause of so much misery. All three members of the Côté family, each in their own way, became Louis Even's great collaborators.
Gilberte Côté said to herself that evening, as she has repeated many times in her life: "I went to university to enlighten my mind in the light of great men, and to look for solutions to the problems of the day, and I didn't find any. When I heard Louis Even speak, I exclaimed: 'This is a master!'" (A few days before her death in 2002, she confided in me that the years she liked least in her life were her university years.)
At 26, young, talented, cultured and financially secure, Gilberte Côté left the world of music and science to establish the movement with Louis Even. It was an evangelical path of self-giving, for the love of the poor.
First activities
Madame Rosario Côté invited Louis Even to give a lecture on the subject in her large house on St. Joseph Boulevard in Montreal. The first two meetings were held in March 1937, 15 days apart. Invited were great friends of the family, priests, fathers from different communities who received help from Madame Côté, lawyers, doctors, and people from other professions. 75 people were present at each meeting.
Louis Even began his meetings by reciting the Rosary. He explained [Douglas] Social Credit so clearly that everyone understood it perfectly. From then on, Louis Even gained the complete and total cooperation of the Côté family.
A group known as The Social Credit League had existed long before and consisted of nothing more than meeting to elect a president and vice-president, all the while eclipsing Louis Even from the center of decision-making. Devotion, prayer, an apostolate, personal effort, and Louis Even's methods didn't suit them.
With her logic and awareness, Gilberte Côté understood their strategy. Louis Even withdrew from the group and flew on his own wings, helped by the Côté family. Gilberte's cousin, Juliette Lavigne, and many other apostles were ready to make the necessary sacrifices and joined the movement.
In January 1938, Louis Even, had a wife and four children but, relying totally on Providence and Madame Côté's charity, he quit his job as foreman at the Garden City Press in Ste-Anne de Bellevue. He traveled the country, spreading the message, begging for food and lodging. He and his family never lacked for necessities.
Being quite comfortable in those days, Madame Côté rented a house for the summer in Labelle County. It was here that the great apostolate of Louis Even began, with no other goal than to free the poor from their misery. At first, the speakers were well received at Ferme Neuve, Mont St. Michel, and many other places, and the halls were packed. They were understood and apostles arose.
But in Mont Laurier, the political center of the region, it was a different story. Miss Côté was organizing an evening assembly in this small town. She had booked a hall, made flyers announcing the event, and distributed them door-to-door but politicians bribed the owner who cancelled the booking.
Without losing courage, she went to a hotel lounge and again promoted the event at the new location. Politicians again won over the hotel owner, who refused to hold the meeting in their establishment. Five times Miss Côté reserved a location and five times she distributed her flyers on the same day. In the end, the assembly was held on the blacksmith's gallery. (It looked a bit like the stable in Bethlehem.) The street was packed with people. Louis Even had climbed onto a chair to give his lecture. As soon as he said a word, a pack of hooligans howled like a pack of savages. The hooligans, urged on by the politicians, picked up all Louis Even's literature, threw it into the street and set it on fire, shouting and blaspheming. This was the reward for a man who wanted to open these people's eyes to the source of their misery. This is just one example of the difficulties of the early days.
Founding a journal
In 1939, our founders were at L'Annonciation, north of Montreal, in the house rented by Mrs. Côté where they learned that war had been declared in Europe. Louis Even began to cry. "We are going to start a journal" was his reply. Even though there was censorship of newspapers due to the war, Louis Even was not a man to give up. Vers Demain (a journal in French, which literally translates as Toward Tomorrow) was launched in September 1939.
But with the war on, it wasn't easy to find a printer for a journal of ideas that denounced the Financiers. Miss Côté went to see a first and then a second printer. The second, after accepting the text, kept the material for three weeks, and in the end refused to do the job, fearing reprisal. Miss Côté turned to L'Éclaireur, of Beauceville. He accepted, and went on to print Vers Demain for 40 years, until Vers Demain set up its own printing plant in Rougemont. He received no reprisals and was not censored.
The office was founded in Mrs. Côté's home on St. Joseph Boulevard. Miss Côté ran the office, answering letters and telephones between her apostolate travels. In the first year, the number of subscribers to Vers Demain rose to 6,000, and in the second year to 25,000. It didn't take much to rouse the anger of the pack of financiers, who used their influence and their wallets to set up influential people to denounce these new ideas that were spreading like wildfire across the country.
It took courage for the founders to continue the fight and win back the trust of the population. Malicious tongues don't know what they are destroying when they throw their venom to the wind without a second thought.
Call for help
In 1941, the founders called on young people to devote themselves full-time to the work. Gérard Mercier, from Ste-Anne de Beaupré, near Quebec City, employee of Annales de Ste-Anne and leader of Young Christian Workers, was the first to answer the call. He was already doing work for Vers Demain locally, and was distinguished by his vigor and daring.
He became closely attached to the founders and supported them with all his strength. He married Gilberte Côté on February 14, 1946, mainly to protect the reputation of our heroic co-founder. He always treated her with great respect and veneration, recognizing the value of the person God had entrusted to him. They both made the sacrifices necessary to dedicate themselves to the work. Gérard Mercier died on September 4, 1997.
The house on St. Joseph Boulevard was no longer large enough to house the office of a newspaper that was growing so rapidly. Madame Côté sold her house and had another built at 4885 Chabot Street, still in Montreal. The entire basement and half of the 2nd floor were reserved for the offices of Vers Demain.
In the 1950s, Mme Côté-Mercier called on idealistic women who, like her, would volunteer their services to the cause. Florentine Séguin and I (Thérèse Tardif) responded, and we're still here, along with several others who have joined the team.
Gilberte Côté gave her all. She never took a vacation. She was in charge of the road programs of our full-time Pilgrims, and went on a lecture tour herself every weekend. She gave weekly talks on radio and television, and helped edit the publication. She took care of all the problems of the members and the work.
Mrs. Côté-Mercier was uncompromising when it came to defending justice and the rights of the poor. She traveled to every region of Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick. She went as far as Western Canada, and even to France, Switzerland and Brazil. And her writings and those of Louis Even now travel the world in hundreds of millions of copies of our literature.
In 1962, Vers Demain and MICHAEL set up their offices in Rougemont, with the construction of the House of St. Michael. Volunteer workers were called in. One day, up to 106 workers from various trades came to help. It was the eve of Pentecost, and the mother of Mrs. Gilberte Côté-Mercier had seen a multitude of arrows rise from Rougemont's mountain into the sky, then descend and disappear over the grounds of the House of St. Michael. This prompted her to say, "People from all over the world will come to this house to be illuminated by the light of [Douglas] Social Credit."
In 1975, the House of the Immaculate was built, with a large hall for annual congresses and accommodation for the men.
Dear Mrs. Côté-Mercier, thank you for setting us an example of dedication, self-giving, love of God and the poor. Thank you for making us apostles, soldiers of Christ and defenders of our neighbour.
Thérèse Tardif
